Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood today, so I'm going to tee off on theism/religion and some of the laughable things that come out of the mouths of their participants. This is going to get bumpy, you've been warned.

“We can agree to disagree.”

It's true, we can agree to not see eye-to-eye on this subject, but don't think for one minute that this puts both of our arguments on equal footing; one argument is clearly not as logical or reasonable as the other. Don't get it twisted, the theist world view is founded on myths that shouldn't survive elementary school, so if we agree to disagree don't mistake it as a nod of respect for your views or argument. The idea of gods is idiotic at best, and destructive to humanity at worst. I'll respect the person, but I steadfastly refuse to respect their cult, or their creepy beliefs. They get only a cold tolerance based on my respect for the freedom of religion, don't count on conversational tolerance if you start yammering about magic men in the sky and how real they are.

“God X is immaterial, and outside space and time.”

I don't have to waste time pointing out how silly this belief is, the theist does all that work for me. But as soon as they assert their god is undetectable, the opposition wins. Removing all the criteria we use to validate a claim doesn't somehow magically make it true, since we now have no way to determine it's existence we have to disregard its possibility of being true. The theist will literally argue their god into non-existence all the while thinking they're pulling a fast one – I don't think so scooter, try again.

“But it's true for me!”

If the god exists only inside your head – only inside your consciousness – then fine, have at it. But when you say it exists outside of your imagination, if you say it's actually true, that becomes a whole new ball game. If you want to say your god is real, that it exists in the outside world, you adopt a burden of proof to demonstrate your claim as being true, just like everyone else. Can't muster the proof? Tough shit, try again when you can. It's arrogant and childish to think the world outside your mind has any obligation to fit your demands – reality has zero responsibility to change itself to fit your idea of what it should be. If the burden of proof is too much for theists to handle, then they need to go stand in the back of the room with the rest of the cultists.

6 comments:

I can agree to disagree, but I will not agree to shutup. So long as you feel you have a right to tell the world how true your god is I have just as much right to vocally disagree and shoot your argument full of holes.

I once got banned from a discussion forum because I didn't respect others beliefs. I guess the quoting the bible at me and telling me I was going to hell was just their way of passing the love on?

F@%&! I feel your pain Parabola, I've spent considerable amounts of time discussing these things with Theists on internet forums, and one discussion turned from a discussion about the existence of god to a 100 page thread trying to explain to this wilfully ignorant chap that truth by definition, CANNOT be relative. What was worse, was that he kept saying that he agreed that truth wasn't relative, but would continue on stating relative truth claims like "God is true for me". I'd just respond with something equally inane like "It is true for me that god doesn't exist for you" or "It is true for me that's you're a deluded moron".

It never fails to impress does it? Thanks for the comments gentlemen, I figured this rant wouldn't draw any comments at all, or, any comments worth replying to.

KJ, I'm convinced that theist-grade special pleading has evolved into some super high powered mutant juggernaut the likes of which would make even the most stalwart philosopher piss himself and begin sobbing fitfully. Woe is us should this monster from the abyss ever smash it's way into our schools. Fuck I need a drink.

I believe that if the Western world ever crumbles, it will be because of intellectual garbage like creationism and extreme capitalism. There are also other things which aren't generally associated with those, for example, over-the-top political correctness and limiting freedom of speech, these will probably contributing to the fall of western civilisation. Speaking of a drink, I have a beer in my hand right now =)

In my case "agree to disagree" is a nice way of saying "You've worn me out with you're stupidity and I am giving up on even attempting to get you to acknowledge that you might be biased...so piss off and have a good day." Sometimes you just have to know when you're talking to the mental equivalent of the dust behind the TV.

That's funny KJ, the reich wing thinks if western culture falls it's due to liberalism (you mentioned excessive political correctness) taken to an extreme. I don't see it, I really don't.

I like your use of "agree to disagree" Elice, it's an argument killer for sure -- I just don't want those crackpot types getting the wrong impression of what its invocation means. But, I think you're right for the most part, people have their gods and some of them are just beyond reason.